Make Holidays Greener Week 2-9 July 2011

Your Holiday Planner is delighted to be supporting the national Make Holidays Greener campaign from the Travel Foundation this week, which aims to raise understanding of how we can all travel greener as we head off on our summer holidays this summer.

At Go2, we’ve always encouraged clients to look at greener options where possible – travelling by train instead of plane, finding places to stay with responsible values or hotels with strong sustainable policies, and opting to choose tours that help the local community.

Make Holidays Greener Week is all about making small changes whilst you’re on holiday that will benefit local people and help protect the environment. It’s not just about specialist or ‘eco’ holidays…whether you are going on an all inclusive package tour or a short city break, there are lots of little things that you can do to help make every holiday greener.

This year, The Travel Foundation are encouraging you to do three simple things:

1. Buying locally…by buying locally made souvenirs, or eating and drinking in locally owned bars and restaurants you are contributing to the local economy and you will have a more unique and special experience of the destination you have chosen to visit.
2. Removing all packaging before you go on holiday… by removing the packaging from items you take on holiday you are helping to reduce pressures on local sanitation services and landfill. Many countries are currently unable to cope with high levels of waste, and do not have recycling services as we do in the UK.
3. Turning off lights and air conditioning… decreasing energy consumption wherever possible will reduce the pressures placed on local supply and help ensure you have power when you do need it.

Your Holiday Planner will also be blogging and tweeting green travel tips all this week. So please keep checking back or follow HolidayPlanner on Twitter.